Have you ever heard? The answer to short, stubby, and straight-facing lashes could also be so simple as swiping on the best eyelash primer. While some beauty products aren’t necessarily essential to your routine, they’ll actually make life somewhat higher — and we consider eyelash primers perfectly fitting of that description.

Our Top Picks:

• Best Overall: Tarte Opening Act Lash Primer$25
• Best for Lengthening: Lancôme Cils Booster XL Super-Enhancing Mascara Base$30
• Best Drugstore: L’Oreal Paris Voluminous Primer Mascara$9
• Best for Separation: Too Faced Better Than Sex Foreplay Mascara Primer$29
• Best Waterproof: Grande Cosmetics GrandePrimer Pre-Mascara Lengthener & Thickener$25

Very like a foundation primer to your skin or a heat protectant to your hair, eyelash primers are a preliminary first step to your lash routine that helps prepare them for a smoother mascara application, says Tonya Rinera makeup artist based in Houston, Texas. Beyond making things somewhat less clumpy, eyelash primers can add volume, length, definition, and fullness to the lashes. In keeping with Riner, the lightweight eyelash formulas of today offer added advantages for the general health of your lashes (à la moisturizing and nourishing waxes, vitamins, and peptides), making the additional step worthwhile. Eyelash primers also provide mascara with an excellent more substantial base to cling on to (more so than your bare lashes), which will help make your favorite mascara more long-lasting and stop it from flaking onto your undereye area, says Martin N. ZaiacMD, a board-certified dermatologist of Greater Miami Skin and Laser Center.

To use an eyelash primer, start with clean, dry lashes. After curling them, apply one coat of the primer in an excellent layer from the bottom to the information, ensuring to make use of “feather-like strokes to be sure that each lash has an excellent amount for a clean, separated look,” says Riner. Allow the primer to dry thoroughly before adding your favorite mascara and voilà! Perfectly prepped lashes.

Below, find nine of our favourite eyelash primer formulas to use pre-mascara.

Best Overall: Tarte Opening Act Lash Primer

Why It’s Value It: Wonderful hairs won’t stand a probability against the Tarte Opening Act Lash Primer, which is a beast in the case of daring, eye-catching lashes. It’s fortified with cellulose (to thicken) and carnauba wax (a harder wax that intensely lengthens because it glides on). And, because you may never wish to be without it, it is available in a nifty travel size fit for jet setters.